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Thursday, February 11, 2010

Have you seen the “Get Paid to Blog!” ads? I used to wonder what that was all about. I guess I still do beings I have no idea what those ads are trying to sell – but then again, I don’t even want to find out. I’m sure it’s a scam of some kind. At least the ads look and sound like a scam.

I can tell you that I am legitimately getting paid to blog, however. Not right this minute as I write this post but in the past 2 days I’ve written 5 posts for 4 different blogs. These are all clients for whom I did orders on Textbroker who liked my work enough to request direct orders from me. The one client I’ve been writing for regularly since Oct. The others are new in the past few weeks but look like they might each need one post per week. And I have a couple more waiting in the wings.

The challenge in blogging for others is generating quality content that is accurate and relevant to their particular target audience. My longest-term paid blogging is specific to home and garden tips, which is something I know about so I’m pretty comfortable with that. The new ones are in less familiar areas so I’m getting to learn something new. I look at blogging for others as similar to developing a newsletter which cuts down on the intimidation factor somewhat.

I’ve also made a few dollars with this blog doing sponsored posts. I may be doing more of those in the future but will always clearly disclose within the post that it has been sponsored. The ones I’ve done so far have been vision or hair related. Who knew you could make money just putting information for others on your own blog?

Another blogging for pay opportunity that I checked into several months ago was through families.com. I was all ready to apply when I found a clause in the small print that I couldn’t agree to although it makes sense. They pay bloggers to post and then they own copyright to everything that’s posted. Well, it’s their blog so that makes sense but I was unwilling to give up rights to my writing for so little pay. I’m sure it’s a nice opportunity for some folks but just wasn’t a good fit for me.

There are also several ways to generate income with paid advertising. Although I have Google Adsense and Amazon ads on my blog, I have yet to make any money. But that’s no mystery – anyone who has read much of my blog knows that every time I include an amazon ad in a post, I also give suggestions of where to get the item for free. And I don’t have the traffic to attract paid advertisers to buy space but I do know of other bloggers who do make a respectable amount of money through paid ads. And if you are savvy enough to develop a niche blog and do everything just right, it’s possible to make a significant income. I’m just not there yet.

Anyway, bottom line is yes, you really can make money blogging. Are you going to get rich blogging for others? No. Are jobs easy to find? Not really – I think I just got lucky. Might you get rich with a niche blog? Maybe – but it’s a lot of work and won’t happen in a hurry so plan to spend some time and don’t quit your day job just yet!

About Me

Proud wife of Joel Horn, author of Impossible Beyond This Point . . .
I'm a wilderness-dwelling granny, quilter and freelance writer/proofreader. In addition to enjoying the grandkids, I create custom memorial quilts, write for a few sites online, and proofread ebooks and patterns.

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"Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life."~Ralph Waldo Emerson